  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | I'll protect you. I couldn't before, but now I can. | „ |
| ~ McCord to Chad Higgins while hallucinating that Chad is his dead son. |
Mitchell McCord, aka The Central Park Slasher, is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Bad Moon on the Rise". He is a lycanthropic serial killer who murders and mutilates people he believes to be criminals on the full moon.
He is portrayed by Ronnie Marmo.
Early life[]
McCord worked as a dental lab technician in Woodhaven, Queens, New York, and was married to a woman named Adele, with whom he had a teenage son, Bryce. One day, the family decided to go ice skating in Manhattan, and afterwards went on an evening walk in Central Park. During the walk, they were accosted by a mugger, who struck Adele with his pistol. When Bryce tried to defend his mother, the mugger shot him, killing him instantly, and ran off. Throughout the entire ordeal, McCord was paralyzed with shock and fear, and did nothing to defend his wife and son. The mugger was never caught.
Adele blamed McCord for Bryce's death, saying that a "real man" would have protected his family, and that she wished he had died instead of Bryce; she left him soon afterward, and he was forced to move into a single-room apartment. Devastated by his son's death and the collapse of his marriage, McCord fell into a deep depression, which he attempted to numb by abusing methamphetamine and MDA (a highly potent form of the popular street drug MDMA aka ecstasy).
The final straw was when Adele filed for divorce so she could marry her new boyfriend, Greg Winters. The impending loss of his wife, in combination with his drug abuse and depression, finally caused him to suffer a psychotic break and develop lycanthropy, the delusion that he could turn into a wolf during the full moon - a delusion fed by the fact that there had been a full moon the night Bryce was murdered. He then became obsessed with killing criminals during his "transformations" in order to avenge Bryce and become the man he thought Adele wanted so she would take him back. He wore a pair of sharp, pointed false teeth he had developed at work to commit his crimes so he could bite his victims the way a wolf would bite its prey.
In "Bad Moon on the Rise"[]
McCord kills his first victim, a jogger in Central Park named Brad Norton, on the night of a full moon, believing (incorrectly) that he is fleeing the scene of a crime. He tears out Norton's throat with his false teeth and disembowels him after death. Later that night, he murders mugger Frankie Brown, who reminds him of the man who killed Bryce, in the same manner.
The following day, McCord sees hot dog vendor Vihaan Patel having an argument with another vendor who accuses him of stealing his territory. Believing Patel to be a thief, McCord attacks and kills him in Central Park with particular violence, nearly decapitating him. On his way out of the park, he sees homeless teenager Chad Higgins sleeping on a park bench and gives the boy his blood-stained coat because he reminds him of Bryce.
The next afternoon, McCord meets with Adele in the park and says that he has changed since Bryce's death and is now the kind of man she wants and needs in her life. Adele rejects him, however, saying that their lives can never be the way they were before Bryce's death and that he needs to move on. She tells him to sign the divorce papers, and leaves. That night, McCord gets drunk and takes his rage out on a woman named Kelly Sinclair, murdering her in the same way he had his other victims, but this time dumping her body in a dumpster and taking her diamond engagement ring - as well as the finger she wore it on - as a trophy.
Meanwhile, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) investigates the murders, profiling the killer as a lycanthrope who is trying to avenge a loss or slight (real or imagined) by targeting criminals and people he believes to be criminals. They deduce that the killer's lycanthropy is the result of drug abuse, and that he uses drugs as a way of coping with severe depression and the hallucinations that compel him to kill. When Higgins is arrested for loitering, he confesses to the murders, but the BAU quickly rules him out, seeing that he is only confessing because he thinks prison will be better than his group home, where he has suffered years of abuse. When Higgins tells them about the man who gave him the coat, they realize that he encountered the real killer, and theorize that he showed Higgins uncharacteristic kindness because the boy reminded him of a loved one.
The BAU then adjusts their profile of the killer to include the recent loss of a loved one, most likely a teenage son, in a violent crime that occurred in Central Park on a full moon, and a divorce or separation, which would explain the killer taking Sinclair's wedding ring as a souvenir. They also theorize that he works in the dental health field, where he could access or create the false teeth he uses to commit the murders. Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia cross-references records of these criteria and finds McCord. The BAU questions Adele about her ex-husband, and she admits that she unfairly made him feel responsible for Bryce's death because she wanted someone else to hurt as much as she did. She then agrees to help the BAU catch him.
McCord runs into Higgins again while trolling for victims in Central Park and kidnaps him, believing that he is Bryce come back to life, and takes him to a wolf den-like structure that he constructed. A witness to the kidnapping tells the BAU about it, and they go to the park, with Adele in tow, to apprehend him. Adele calls out to him that she is sorry for the things she said to him, and that Bryce's death was not his fault. When she begs him to give himself up, however, he refuses, saying that the BAU cannot "protect our boy", meaning Higgins. McCord finally relents after Adele tells him that he is a good man and a good father, and lets Higgins go as the BAU takes him into custody. He is then institutionalized for life.
Trivia[]
- McCord is inspired by two real-life serial killers:
- The late Ludwig Tessnow, a.k.a. "The Mad Carpenter", a serial killer of children who were violently butchered in woods in Germany, leading to local myths of werewolves.
- The late Fritz Haarmann, a.k.a. “The Vampire of Hanover” and “The Wolf Man”, a serial killer/rapist of men and boys who tore out his victims' throats with his teeth.
- The late Herbert Mullin, a schizophrenic serial/spree killer whose crimes were motivated in part by paranoid delusions worsened by severe drug abuse, and who often killed his victims in parks and other outdoor areas.
- Bernhard Goetz, a.k.a. “The Subway Vigilante”, a shooter of four boys who he feared were hassling him in a New York City subway, with a revolver he bought after he was mugged.
- Wayne Adam Ford, a serial killer of women he's responsible for butchering to take aggression towards his ex-wife out of them, all for taking custody of their child.
- "Charlie Chop-Off", an unidentified American serial killer and mutilator of children in New York City, suspected yet never confirmed to be escaped mental patient Ernesto Soto.
External links[]
- Mitchell McCord on the Criminal Minds Wiki
